Hope: the Senate isn't Ready to Roll Over for the Antichrist, Just Yet
5. Hope: the Senate isn't Ready to Roll Over for the Antichrist, Just Yet!
Congressman Tom Tancredo, Republican Presidential Candidate, continues to behave as if June 27, July 8, and July 29 never happened.
June 27 was the day the U.S. Senate stuck out its foot from the thirteenth aisle, as Tom Tancredo came walking by, arm and arm with his beloved, the Electronic Employment Verification System.
July 8 was when the Senate's foot came down and stepped on the bridal train.
July 29 was when the train pulled off.
Yet Tom is still on his way up the aisle as if nothing happened. As if his bride has not sprinted back to the bathroom, screaming, while 37 states jeered.
And what a lovely couple they had made! He had courted her at least since 2003, when his dreamboat immigration bill, HR 3534, contained a mandatory employment eligibility verification system. They were engaged as he placed his co-sponsorship of the Real ID Act, HR 418, around her finger in 2005. 139 others were cosponsors, but his voice was one of the loudest in support. How touching were his affections towards her in his press release about the 9/11 Commission Report! (See "Tancredo's Press Release calling for Government Tracking") John Wayne would have defended her honor no more than Tancredo's indignant complaints that Congress and the President are too slowly creating "Secure U.S. identification documents, including passports, birth certificates, and driver's licenses", and "a comprehensive, biometric-based, automated system to screen everyone entering and departing from the United States that links all available immigration and intelligence data [DHS, SSA, FBI, and state driver's license records] and verifies secure identification documents."
Tancredo still gloats about immigration reform going down in flames June 28, as if that showed "amnesty was defeated...because Americans refused to be silent", as he stated in his June 29 press release.
As if, in defeating what he affectionately calls "amnesty", the Senate had not
also decisively rejected his beloved, the huge national tracking bureaucracy without which no American citizen
could get a job, and without which the ruthless no-exceptions roundups and deportations which Tancredo demands
will remain impossible.
Senate leaders well understood the impossibility of forcibly deporting 12 million residents without the Electronic Employment Verification System, and the impossibility of making the System work without the Real ID database and card. After the Senate sent Tancredo's bride to the bathroom, Senator Kennedy gave up on the whole immigration bill which he co-managed: "unless you are going to have a tamperproof card, you might as well forget it." And yet it was by 52-45, that the Senate voted not to table (kill) an amendment to the immigration bill that said "...no Federal agency may require ... a driver's license ... specified under the REAL ID Act of 2005 [scheduled to take effect by May 11, 2008] ... to establish ... identity in order to be hired by an employer...." (Senate Amendment 1934, Division VII, voted 5:34 pm, motion to table failed 45 to 52, 3 not voting.) PART OF THE BAUCUS AMENDMENT THAT PASSED BY 52-45, KILLING THE IMMIGRATION BILL:
S1639 P. 131 SEC. __. IDENTIFICATION CARD STANDARDS. (a) Repeal.--Section 306 of this Act is repealed. (b) Limitation.--Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act or the amendments made by this Act-- (1) no Federal agency may require that a driver's license or personal identification card meet the standards specified under the REAL ID Act of 2005 (division B of Public Law 109-13) to establish employment authorization or identity in order to be hired by an employer; and (2) no Federal funds may be provided under this Act to assist States to meet such standards to establish employment authorization or identity in order to be hired by an employer."
July 8 was when the Senate Appropriations Committee provided $0 for the Real ID Act in the markup of its spending bill. The House wasn't much more helpful, having provided only $50 million for a project estimated to cost the Fed $2.3 billion annually according to the Congressional Budget Office.
July 29 was when the Senate rejected, by 50-44, a Republican amendment to give $300 million to states to help them implement the Real ID Act. Not only was the final bill left with only $50 million for Real ID, but by "unanimous consent", (where no vote is taken but someone asks if the amendment can be adopted by "unanimous consent" and no one objects), none of that $50 million can be used for "planning, testing, piloting, or developing a national identification card"! The amendment was by Real ID critic Max Baucus, who also cosponsored the amendment that killed the Immigration Compromise June 27th.
The Senate refused to trample the liberties of 300 million American citizens in order to deny liberty to 12 million unauthorized American residents. The fact that we cannot take away their liberty without destroying our own is the kind of irony God would think of.
|
END National ID plan may have killed immigration bill
The U.S. Senate definitively rejected President George Bush's immigration bill on Thursday, just hours after senators expressed deep misgivings with portions that would have expanded the use of a national ID card.
Because the procedural vote was 46 to 53, with 60 votes needed to advance the immigration legislation, the proposal is likely to remain dead for the rest of the year.
Privacy advocates were quick to claim that a vote against Real ID cards the previous evening doomed the bill.
Wednesday's vote showed that senators were willing to delete the portion of the labyrinthine immigration bill that would require employers to demand the Real ID cards from new hires. Because some of the bill's backers had insisted that the ID requirement remain in place--as a way to identify illegal immigrants--they were no longer as willing to support the overall bill.
"The proponents of national ID in the Senate weren't getting what they wanted, so they backed away," said Jim Harper, a policy analyst at the free-market Cato Institute who opposes Real ID. "It was a landmine that blew up in their faces."
In a press release, the two Montana Democrats, Max Baucus and Jon Tester, said they were happy that a pro-privacy approach killed the bill. "If Jon and I just brought down the entire bill, that's good for Montana and the country," said Baucus, who cosponsored the amendment deleting the employer verification rule.
But supporters of the overall legislation, which would have created a new category of "Z" visas for currently illegal immigrants, expressed dismay at its apparent demise.
Microsoft said it was disappointed by Thursday's procedural vote against advancing the bill, which will "likely result in the collapse of comprehensive immigration reform that is desperately needed to address the shortage of highly skilled talent."
"The American people understand the status quo is unacceptable when it comes to our immigration laws," Bush said.
Opponents of the bill, including Republican senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina, said derailing it was a victory. "When the U.S. Senate brought the amnesty bill back up this week, they declared war on the American people," DeMint said.
The American Civil Liberties Union, another longtime foe of Real ID, said the Real ID requirements were a "poison pill that derailed this bill, and any future legislation should be written knowing the American people won't swallow it." http://news. zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-6193916.htm
By Declan McCullagh, CNET News.com
Published on ZDNet News: Thursday, June 28, 2007, 12:18 PM
SENATE REFUSES TO FUND REAL ID!
As spending bills for the Homeland Security Department move through Congress — the full
Senate must still debate its fiscal 2008 appropriations bill for DHS — ....
One possible loser is a program for national driver’s license standards under the Real ID Act, which Congress
passed in 2005. .... State governors estimated the program could cost as much as $11 billion over five years,
....So far, however, it’s unclear how much the federal government is willing to pay as its share.
The Senate Appropriations Committee included no funding for Real ID in the markup of its spending bill,
and the House proposed only $50 million for the program in the bill it passed June 15.
...Many states look at Real ID as an unfunded mandate from the federal government, which could undermine
the program, she added.
“If the federal government doesn’t come up with funding, then some states will not implement Real ID,”
Kerber said. “We’ve already seen some cases where [state departments of motor vehicles] have asked for
money to improve their processes, but the state legislatures have turned them down because they don’t
see anything coming from the feds.” http://www.fcw. com/article 103170-07-09-07-Print "DHS bills
offer plenty for locals"
BY Brian Robinson
Published on July 9, 2007
Related articles:
House subcommittee approves $36.3B spending bill for DHS
Senate committee approves $37.6B for DHS [The vote not to fund Real ID was 48-46!]
|
Senators Rebel against Real ID, take it out on Immigration Compromise! On June 27, 2007, the day before the Immigration Compromise Bill unexpectedly died, Senator Leahy explained what was wrong with RealID: "Mr. President, I am pleased to offer my support for the GPO's PDF Baucus-Tester-Collins-Leahy amendment to strip the references to the problematic REAL ID program from the underlying immigration bill. We may agree or disagree about the merits of the actual REAL ID program, but as hearings in the Judiciary Committee and the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee have shown, REAL ID is far from being ready for prime time. While the Department of Homeland Security has not even released final regulations directing the States on REAL ID implementation, REAL ID licenses are rapidly becoming a de facto national ID card, since you will need one to enter courthouses, airports, Federal buildings, and--if this bill passes--workplaces all across the country. With roughly 260 million drivers in this country, I do not see how we could have the massive national databases required by REAL ID and this immigration bill up and running by the 2013 deadline set in this bill. Moreover, REAL ID raises multiple constitutional issues whose legal challenges could delay final implementation for years. In addition to numerous privacy and civil liberties concerns, REAL ID is a massive drivers' tax that could cost Americans taxpayers more than $23 billion. Opposition spans the political spectrum, from the right to the left, and a large number of States have expressed concerns about the mandates of the REAL ID Act by enacting bills and resolutions that oppose REAL ID. Georgia, Washington, Oklahoma, Montana, South Carolina, Maine, and New Hampshire have gone so far as to pass binding legislation that says they intend to refuse to comply with REAL ID. The National Conference of State Legislatures and the National Governors Association have expressed serious reservations about the costs imposed on the States--and the structure of the poorly drafted grant program in the underlying bill. The Center for Democracy and Technology and the ACLU have expressed serious concerns about the lack of privacy and civil liberties protections within the REAL ID program. The reaction to the unfunded mandates and lack of privacy standards in the REAL ID Act is a good example of what happens when the Federal Government imposes a unilaterally devised and ill-considered mandate rather than working to meet goals through cooperation, bipartisanship, and partnership. For any new immigration measures to be effective, they must be well designed. Forcing employers, employees, and the States to use this troublesome national ID card will slow down the hiring process, stifle commerce, and not serve as an effective strategy. In addition, the States have already told us that they will not all have their new license programs up and running by the 2013 deadline called for in this bill. On top of that, I have gone through this bill several times, and I have found money for border fences, money for surveillance technologies, money for border patrol agents, and money for detention facilities, but I cannot find any hard money that actually goes into REAL ID implementation. So doing away with this poorly drafted grant program will not take $1 away from the $4.4 billion in enforcement money contained in this bill. As a result, I do not believe that we should jeopardize the future success of the immigration reforms sought in this bill by tying REAL ID too closely to it. Instead of mandating REAL ID licenses for employment verification, I think we should support the Baucus-Tester-Collins-Leahy amendment [S.Amdt. 1236] to strip REAL ID from this bill and put together a workable employment verification system that does not needlessly burden every legal job seeker in this country with the onerous and problematic requirements of REAL ID." (Congressional Record, page S8599.) Shortly before Leahy spoke, the Senate had voted, 52 to 45, to consider the Grassley-Baucus-Domenici amendment, S. Amdt. 1934, which already did most of what Leahy proposed. Shortly after Leahy spoke, the Senate voted to kill the Immigration Compromise. |
Senator Leahy's amendment striking the use of Real ID to verify eligibility for employment (above right) was never voted on. But his logic struck at the heart of the premise of deporting illegals. Without "Big Brother" or "Mark of the Beast" tracking technology making it impossible to get a job without the Mark, and without positive incentives for our 12 million unauthorized immigrants to "come out of the shadows", it is simply impossible to find and deport more than a fraction of them. Positive incentives for unauthorized immigrants are like throwing lard in a mosque, to "send 'em South" Senators. Anything you do for immigrants that is remotely fair or kind is "amnesty". It is "rewarding lawbreakers", ACCORDING TO THEIR RHETORIC. So positive incentives to comply with the law are absolutely ruled out. But we are not enough of a police state, yet, to seriously dream of finding and deporting 12 million residents no matter how much we want to! That is where the Electronic Employment Verification System comes in.
Senators Feinstein and Hutchison explained why. Senator Feinstein said before we make unauthorized resident immigrants go back to their home countries to reply for legal permanent residence (LPR), we should give them some assurance we will let them back in again. Otherwise they will just stay in the shadows.
Feinstein: "What immigrant is going to show up and register for a program if he has to take his chances on leaving the country and coming back in before he gets some kind of immigration status? What immigrant is going to report to deport? I wager that many, if not most, will simply stay underground and try to keep their heads down for as long as possible. They have built lives here, they have families, they own homes, and they have jobs they want to keep. Very few undocumented immigrants are going to show up for a program that offers no certainty they will actually be able to legalize their status. "
Hutchinson answered: "She says, What immigrant is going to report to deport? What she is asking is, what is the incentive of an illegal immigrant to come forward and say they are illegal and they want to get right with the process to become legal? That is a very important question that many people in our country have asked. Who is going to do that? Here is the incentive ....So why wouldn't they stay here and be illegal? Why wouldn't they keep their families and their homes? Here is why. Because when the 3 years is up and the trigger is pulled, because the border security measures have gone into effect--you have the 1 year for people to come forward.... After that 3 years, there is going to be an employer verification system that is going to work. So these people will not be able to go back to their jobs if they have not completed the process. That is the incentive . That is why they will report. That is why they will become legal in the system, because with the employer verification that is a key part of this bill, they will have to have that tamperproof ID stamped that they have been home to apply from outside the country before they come back in and become regularized and are job eligible. This is going to be the key. The employer verification system will assure that they will not get jobs in this country without that visa that is tamperproof and shows they have been home to do it."
True, the Electronic Employment Verification System (which uses the Real ID card to prove eligibility to work) - the Mark of the Beast - the ultimate police state - is the ONLY POSSIBLE way to find and banish 12 million hard working souls whose crime is akin to violating a 5 mph limit on the Interstate. It is God's justice that before we can yank the liberties of 12 million of his precious children, we must yank our own! "He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword". I don't understand how the bill offered enough of a front door to kill interest in the back door. As long as numerical limitations permit only a fraction of those who want to come to enter the front door, the back door will remain busy. The Congressional Budget Office agrees, according to Jeff Sessions, who said: "The majority leader said the people want one thing, they want border security. What do we know about this legislation? It does not give us border security. The Congressional Budget Office, our own analysis team, has looked at this bill and concluded in the next 20 years we will have another 8.7 million people in our country illegally. It will only reduce illegal immigration by 13 percent. That is what our own staff, under the majority leader's control, has told us."
If this is true even under an immigration bill that creates a Big Brotherish Electronic Employment Verification System AND positive incentives to come out of the shadows and sign up for a legal path to legal permanent residence and citizenship, (but which also requires 18 years of waiting, according to Senator Kennedy, along with huge fines, along with numerical limitations which remain low), what conceivable bill could cause our 12 million + unauthorized residents to be removed?
What conceivable bill could disprove Senator Kennedy when he said "with the strong kind of magnet attraction the American economy has, there is going to be leakage on that border. No matter how high we build walls or how many radars or air drones we have there or how many border guards we have, there is going to be leakage, unless we provide at least some opportunities for those who have some skills that in the United States we find we are unable to get filled in terms of the American workforce"?
We just aren't enough of a police state.
Yet.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Grassley was optimistic enough. He spoke eloquently against repeating the 1986 amnesty, which he called a mistake. He proposed a solution: expand temporary work programs enough that people can come legally, and thus replace illegal workers by attrition. However, he said he was still undecided about the whole bill, even with his amendment -- he was still "weighing heavily" what to do.
|
GRASSLEY: "I am one of about 22 or 23 Members of the Senate who were here in 1986 when we passed amnesty, as is in this bill as well. I was one of those Senators who voted for amnesty at that particular time. At that particular time, we had maybe 1 million to 3 million people cross the border illegally and who were here illegally. We all thought--and there have been plenty of references to statements made in the Congressional Record 20 years ago--that if we were to adopt amnesty, it would settle this problem once and for all, do it once and for all. You know, I believed that. But do you know what I found out maybe 5 or 10 years ago? When you reward illegality, you get more of it. Now the guesstimate is that we have 12 million people here illegally. They are not illegal people, but they came here illegally. I think I have an obligation to consider the votes I made before and, if they are wrong, not make that mistake again. You know, it is a little like the chaos you would have if you didn't respect and enforce red lights and stop signs. You would have chaos at intersections and accidents. Wherever you don't enforce the rule of law, those are the things that happen. You need social cohesion, and social cohesion comes from respect for the rule of law in our country. o it seems to me that, as we go down this road, what we ought to do is concentrate on legal immigration, the reforms we are bringing to the H-1B program, the reforms we are bringing in the way of a temporary worker program. People would rather come here legally rather than illegally, I believe. I know it is not very satisfying to people to hear that we have 12 million people in the underground. The point is that if people could come here legally to work, they would soon, one by one, by attrition, replace people who are here illegally, I believe. I am not one who wants to make that mistake again. That is why I am weighing very heavily the issue of what we do with amnesty or what other people who don't like the word 'amnesty' would say is earned citizenship, guest worker program, those sorts of things that are covering up really what we are doing. I say if it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, it is a duck. If it looks like amnesty, it is amnesty. That is the bottom line. We ought to learn the lesson that in 1986 it didn't work. I don't think it will work now. I am 73 years old, so obviously I am not going to be here 20 years from now when we have another immigration bill. But I should not make that problem so that a successor of mine has to deal with 25 million people being here illegally as opposed to the 12 million now or the 1 to 3 million before." (Congressional Record, page S8591) |
But Grassley's amendment didn't bother any temporary work programs. Here is the issue that toppled the immigration bill:
|
GRASSLEY: "...going back to January or February, Senator Kyl had met with me and some other people....saying that they were very strongly in favor of [not] protecting the privacy of Internal Revenue tax records and Social Security information and ... [in favor of] giving the Department of Homeland Security any sort of information they want". [In April a compromise was reached that protected privacy, but the current bill leaves that out, so my amendment puts it back in.] |
Trouble is, the senators in charge didn't want it back in. They basically said they wanted "the Department of Homeland Security" to have "any sort of information they want"; they didn't express any concern for "protecting the privacy of Internal Revenue tax records and Social Security information."
They wanted a national photograph system, and not just any cheap photo..
THE ISSUES: The strategy for passing the Immigration Compromise bill crumbled over the Senate vote, by 52-45, to be satisfied with current ID technology, and to reject the Real ID Card.
The difference: existing ID technology consists of a combination of passports, social security cards, and state driver's licenses. Existing state driver's licenses rely on databases which are not automatically available to other states or to federal agencies. Many states still laminate polaroid photos to their licenses, so that no digital images are retained in anyone's computer. Every employee in the U.S. is checked once a year when he fills out his W2 form with his social security number. When a number doesn't match a name in the Social Security Administration database, the SSA sends out a "no match" letter to the employer.
The new Real ID technology requires a digital photo, which instantly interfaces not only with the Social Security Administration database, but with that of the new huge database combining Department of Transportation records from all 50 states, and a certain amount of "information sharing" with the FBI and the IRS . The digital photo is a "biometric measure" stored in the huge new national database, which can be processed by Facial Recognition software, theoretically enabling cameras across the nation to scan crowds and instantly identify everyone in them. (Although tests of this capacity have not yet done well.)
News articles are mostly limited to 300-500 words, so they can't explain much more than this. But a few readers want to see the evidence for themselves. Unfortunately, the evidence is not clear from a handful of quotes, because the debaters did not plainly say what they were talking about. One might even say some of the discussion was "in code".
(Why? Could it be some wanted to keep their statements difficult to quote (without the lengthy explanations that make quotes useless in short articles) as authoritative sources of what the DHS really wants? Whatever the motive, the communication was so unclear that Senators responded as if they were really confused by it -- or was it that they really understood, but were "playing dumb" to provoke the previous speaker to admit what he really means? )
Only by seeing the evidence for yourself can you (1) immunize yourself against rumors and inaccuracies, of which there are legion; (2) understand what the Senators are so passionate about - for example, how much of their concern is for one part of the issue, and how much for the other; (3) understand who is committed to one side, who to the other, and who may be confused. With this information you have a much better basis for predicting what the Senate may do about these issues in the future. This may not seem critical information most of the time, but here it is an important clue to how close the Mark of the Beast is.
CAST OF CHARACTERS: It was called "the Baucus amendment" in Senate discussion.. Senator Max Baucus certainly wrote at least part of it. But Republican Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa was the one who stood on the Senate floor to argue for it, after which the Senate approved it by 52-45, and Grassley's name was listed first in an exchange of letters. Senator Barack Obama (Democratic presidential candidate) as the third name on the amendment as of June 19, when the Letter War erupted between Baucus and Grassley, on one side, and Michael Chertoff, head of the DHS (Department of Homeland Security) on the other. But Obama's name was not on the amendment when it prevailed in the June 27 vote. Senator Domenici's name instead was on the amendment June 27, but he voted against it! After the June 27 vote on the Baucus-Domenici-Grassley amendment, Senator's Reid, Coburn, and Kennedy got down on their hands and knees on the Senate floor searching for their wits which they had lost, until Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy stood up for the Baucus-Collins-Leahy-Tester amendment which stripped the Real ID Act out of the Immigration Compromise bill even more thoroughly than Grassley's amendment, after which Senate debate ended with a dull thud with no further voting that day. The next vote, on the next day, was to put the poor thing out of its well deserved misery.
THE EVIDENCE: The Immigration Compromise Bill (which started off as S1348) died June 28, 2007. The lethal amendment was fired by Senators Grassley, Baucus, and Obama.
Debate over that bullet began, not on the Senate floor, but in a letter fired June 19 by Michael Chertoff, director of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), not to Grassley, Baucus, or Obama, but to Senator Arlen Specter, the Republican floor manager of the immigration bill who, with Democrat Ted Kennedy, had unprecedented, newly created power to kill amendments before they could be submitted. Senator Grassley put his exchange of letters with Chertoff in the Congressional Record.
On 6/19/7, Chertoff wrote that the Immigration Compromise bill provides
|
(CHERTOFF:) "mandatory verification of all existing workers. Under the Grassley-Baucus-Obama Amendment, existing workers are never checked. So serious criminals, and other aliens who are not eligible for legal status, would be able to hide in their existing jobs indefinitely." |
Notice what Chertoff does not say, the absence of which forces the conclusion either that Chertoff is ignorant, or that he is speaking in code. As Grassley answered, every existing worker is already checked once a year when he fills out his W2 form. Does Chertoff not know that? Of course he does. He fills one out too.
But that doesn't even count, in Chertoff's mind, as ever being checked. So what DOES count in Chertoff's mind, as "mandatory verification of all existing workers" that is provided in the Immigration Compromise bill? Obviously, the showing or swiping of the Real ID Card, which instantly interfaces not only with the Social Security Administration database, but with that of the new huge database combining Department of Transportation records from all 50 states, and limited "information sharing" with the FBI and the IRS. (Although no one said a word about it, a match to a terrorist could alert authorities to show up on the job site in minutes to nab their prize, compared with a W2 form which the employer might not submit for a couple of months.) Now THAT is VERIFICATION!
Chertoff's 2nd concern: Grassley's amendment has a
|
(CHERTOFF:) "Loophole for Fake Documents--Current Title III requires that new hires show a secure identification card to keep their jobs. Under the Grassley-Baucus-Obama Amendment, in contrast, most new hires will be able to present any driver's license, whether or not it meets federal standards for secure documents." |
Here is our second clue to deciphering Chertoff's code: he contrasts "secure identification card" with "any driver's license, whether or not it meets federal standards for secure documents." The only "federal standards" for ID documents were created by the Real ID Act in 2005, and they are the heart of the Electronic Employment Verification System as created in the Immigration Compromise bill. So now we know the debate is really about a "secure" card, upon which Chertoff insists, rather than just "any" driver's license, with which Grassley is satisfied.
Grassley, Baucus, and Obama wrote back the next day, explaining why it was "onerous and unnecessary" to "run all existing workers through the verification system within three years." They said
|
(GRASSLEY:) "these workers are already subject to the annual wage reporting (no-match) process." "Our amendment would require employers to run existing workers through the system only when there is evidence to suspect unlawful employment. To accomplish this goal, DHS would be given access to Social Security and IRS data to identify all mismatched, duplicate, deceased, minor children, or non-work SSNs." |
The senators responded to Chertoff's complaint that the amendment would be satisfied with "any driver's license":
|
(GRASSLEY:) "The pending immigration bill says state driver's licenses and ID cards that are not REAL ID compliant will no longer be accepted beginning in 2013. The language also gives the Secretary of DHS the authority to modify state driver's licenses and ID cards prior to the implementation of REAL ID." |
Grassley continues:
|
(GRASSLEY:) "Finally,... Our amendment avoids imposing an arbitrary deadline [by which employers must require employees to show a Real ID card or face huge business-busting fines] and allows the continued use of state driver's licenses and ID cards (subject to new verification procedures with the state DMVs) in recognition of the fact that final implementation of REAL ID remains in doubt. " |
Chertoff replied the next day, June 21 (which proves these letters were not delivered through the U.S. Post Office). He said Grassley's reliance upon matches between Social Security numbers and employee-submitted names doesn't "generate" nearly enough "evidence of unlawful behavior".
I would like to tell you how he explained how his system generates a lot more evidence, but he didn't, and I don't want to put words in his mouth.
But we can guess. Remember that under Grassley's plan, if the social security number matches the name in SSA's computers, nothing more is done. Thus citizens are subjected to no more intrusion than they are now. But under Chertoff's wish list, it isn't enough if your SSN is in order. Chertoff wants to check that against the records of the FBI, IRS, and every state Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV).
If that were all, one might not expect much new information. If the FBI wants someone, they can already search by SSN to find his last workplace. Or where he last swiped a credit card. If that were all, this procedure probably wouldn't expose phony ID's, because false identities usually begin with a false SSN card, which is used to get a driver's license in the same name.
But the Real ID Act requires more. It requires that even senior citizens, in order to renew their licenses, must bring proof of current address, and a birth certificate. ($10 for a copy in Iowa, whose population is about 3 million. See box below for specific requirements.) Nearly a quarter of SSA records do not indicate whether the SSN holder is a citizen, because that information was not collected in SSA's early years.
The other way the Real ID generates more evidence than existing technology is by putting every U.S. resident's photo in a huge national database which surveillance cameras across America can access. Cool, huh? That would be as good as having a police car following me wherever I go. That would be as good as being audited by the IRS every year. But maybe Senator Grassley didn't agree that would be cool.
The next day, June 22, Grassley and company fired back their final letter to Chertoff. He began
|
(GRASSLEY:) "We are again disappointed that you have written another erroneous and misleading letter regarding our amendment....Our amendment requires every employer to verify every newly hired worker through the employment verification system." |
Notice he did not say "the ELECTRONIC Employment Verification System". Grassley is refusing the future ID technology of the Real ID Act. But he repeats himself in saying existing ID technology is more than enough:
|
GRASSLEY: "According to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, more than 60 million workers would be verified each year through this process. In addition, under current tax law, every employer must submit an annual W-2 for every worker. According to Social Security Administration data, more than 160 million workers will be verified each year through this process. Requiring every employer to verify every worker through the employment verification system would merely duplicate the results of verifying every worker through the W-2 process. " |
(This may be so, but verifying workers through the ELECTRONIC employment verification system, with its facial scans in a national database hooked to nationwide surveillance cameras, would do more than "merely duplicate...the W-2 process".This seems to be a place where not being specific, on both sides, led to genuine miscommunication.)
|
GRASSLEY: "If the names and SSNs match in one case, there is no reason to believe they won't match in the other case. In order to avoid needless duplication, our amendment allows DHS to obtain data through the W-2 process..." |
Grassley next expresses frustration that Chertoff doesn't think Grassley's alternative is as secure. Grassley says that, after all, even though there is no Real ID, the other agencies ard ordered to figure out how to prove whether their ID documents are legitimate. Maybe Chertoff figures the Real ID Act was that way, and there is no other way, even if bureaucrats are ordered to think of one. Here is how Grassley states his case:
|
GRASSLEY: "Your letter states that under the version of Title III supported by DHS 'we will be relying on electronic verification ..... [to prevent] ..... illegal employment. Your amendment does not require equivalent security measures.' This statement reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of our amendment. Our amendment requires workers to submit their Passport number, driver's license number, or employment authorization number (as applicable based on citizenship status) in addition to their Social Security number through the employment verification system. It further requires SSA, the State Department, and state DMV agencies to establish a reliable and secure method to allow DHS to verify the identity documents issued by each agency. Thus, DHS will be able to determine when identity documents are fraudulent or when more than one person is using the same legitimate document." |
So much for the Letter Wars preceding the June 27 Senate floor debate. When the big day came, Senator Kyl spoke as if he had not read Grassley's amendment but only the first letter about Grassley's amendment from Secretary Chertoff:
|
KYL: "....the Grassley amendment provides that none of the current employees are checked. In other words, the only people who have to be checked are future employees, so all the people working today, including all the illegal immigrants working today, don't have to be checked under the Grassley amendment." |
An amazing charge. But not as amazing as Grassley's answer!
|
GRASSLEY: One of the criticisms that Senator Kyl gave against my amendment is we are not going to force employers to look through 160 million workers to find illegal workers. Let's look at the basic legislation. The legislation legalizes people who are here already illegally. So if they are illegally working, and this bill legalizes them, don't you see how ridiculous it is that we are going to tell people to go out and find people who are here illegally when the bill has already legalized them? |
At first blush, one might wonder if Grassley were naive, to think the legalization process contains enough positive incentives to coax all to come out of the shadows - even criminals. But do you remember his proposed solution - allowing workers to come legally so they don't have to come illegally? Were he allowed to produce such a bill, Big Brother would not be needed to find lawbreakers.
Kyl spoke about the "photograph" as if he had only read Chertoff's vague letter, which made it sound like all Chertoff wanted was an ordinary old fashioned photo ID. When he said "You have to verify that the person standing in front of you is the person to whom the document has been issued", he seems clueless that Grassley's amendment leaves that in place, which leaves, for what Chertoff demanded more, the digital photo file which enables national computers to verify that the person swiping his card is the person to whom the document was issued.
|
KYL: "Secondly, amazingly, the only way to physically verify that the person seeking the job is, in fact, the person with the identity entitled to be employed is with a photograph. Nobody is proposing that we fingerprint people to get jobs, and that leaves the photograph as the best identity document. The bill provides that either a passport with a photograph or a driver's license with a photograph be the document. You have to verify that the person standing in front of you is the person to whom the document has been issued and the rightful owner of the Social Security number he has given you. The Grassley amendment does not require that a photograph be used in the identification process. This is one of the first things that was recommended by the 9/11 Commission, to have a secure document with a photograph with which you can confirm identity." |
Grassley didn't educate Kyl about the type of photo Chertoff wanted, but treated Kyl's objection as ignorant since Grassley's amendment also requires ID photos. He even made it sound as if he were offering the DHS more information than the bill offered without his amendment.
|
GRASSLEY: "The second [criticism of my amendment] is that we eliminate the requirement of a photograph for identification. My amendment requires every U.S. citizen to present a passport or driver's license and every noncitizen to present a legal permanent resident card or work authorization card. Each of these documents is required to contain an individual's photograph. [But not a digital photo.] "Moreover, my amendment requires workers to submit their passport number, driver's license number, or employment authorization number in addition to their Social Security number through the employment verification system. Without that information, there is no guarantee that Homeland Security will be able to contact the issuing agencies or determine which document was issued. This is the very same problem that has prevented Homeland Security from utilizing Social Security Administration data in the past. "My amendment further requires the Social Security Administration, the State Department, and the State departments of motor vehicles to establish a reliable and secure method to allow the Department of Homeland Security to verify the identity document of each issuing agency." |
It turns out Kyl understood what kind of photo he wanted, after all. So why did he talk only needing the ordinary photo which Grassley's amendment already allowed? Here Kyl describes a photo "in State or Federal databases", which requires that the phots be digital; and he mentions "the DHS-run photo match system", which can only refer to facial recognition software.
|
KYL: "The amendment of the Senator from Iowa eliminates both the requirement of an employee to show an official identification card with a photo in State or Federal databases (digital) and the DHS-run photo match system that is the ultimate protection against document fraud in the workplace. You have to be able to do that match. |
You wouldn't mind if the IRS's auditors knew everywhere you go, by tracking you every time you pass by a government surveillance camera, would you? Of course not. You have nothing to hide. Right? It would just be a bigger party, right?
What a party pooper Senator Grassley has turned out to be! Here is more of Grassley's quote from early in this article:
|
GRASSLEY: "...Senator Kyl ... and some other people...were very strongly in favor of [not] protecting the privacy of Internal Revenue tax records and Social Security information and were hellbent on going down a route of giving the Department of Homeland Security any sort of information they want, not within the tradition of protecting the privacy of income tax records. So that is why my amendment is being offered, because I am going back to that compromise which I presented to the committee in the rump session back in April which I thought was OK. I find out now that it is not. That is why I am going to offer my amendment." |
Senator Kyl's response:
|
KYL: "One of the key things we did after 9/11 was to ensure that Government agencies could share information with each other. When we determined the best way to ensure people are legally eligible to work, we quickly understood that we had to have sharing of information from the Social Security Administration, from the Department of Homeland Security, even, in some cases, from the Internal Revenue Service. Unless these agencies are able to share the information with each other when we access the databases, we are not going to know for sure whether the individual is entitled to be employed. What the [Grassley] amendment provides is that after 5 years, the information-sharing provisions are sunsetted." |
So as Kyl says here, and Grassley affirms later, Grassley was willing to allow the IRS to collaborate with the DHS and SSA about our tax records, but only for 5 years; Kyl thought only 5 years of IRS sharing our personal financial secrets with the entire federal bureaucracy was just terrible. DHS Secretary Chertoff was not shy, during the Letter War before June 27, about praising the glories of new armies of IRS auditors attacking U.S. citizens with huge new fines:
|
CHERTOFF: "No Improvement in IRS Authority--Nothing worries an unscrupulous businessman more than the prospect of a tax audit. [Or any businessman, for that matter. Or any citizen.] The IRS has great investigative skills; [Maybe not "great" in the sense of consistent, fair, accurate, or legal, but "great" in the sense of overwhelming] it also has authority to punish immigration violators who file incorrect information about their employees, [the immigration bill didn't limit the IRS' use of its new access to information about every citizen to immigration issues.] but this authority does not have the deterrent effect it should because the current fines are so low. Title III fixes this problem by raising the fines and creating a dedicated Criminal Investigation Office to investigate tax violations related to immigration violations. Grassley-Baucus-Obama drops all of these important provisions."
|
While you and I will think such a bureaucracy the trappings of Paradise, Grassley was horrified.
|
GRASSLEY: The pending immigration bill would increase IRS penalties for filing incorrect information returns and authorizes--but does not fund--additional IRS personnel to investigate incorrect returns. This is a poorly concealed effort to recruit IRS personnel to do the job DHS is supposed to do: enforce our immigration laws. We strongly support creating an effective, mandatory employment verification system for all employers to verify the legal status of their workers. But the design, implementation, and oversight of the system as proposed in the pending immigration bill are flawed in several respects. Our amendment would improve Title III by (1) protecting U.S. citizens and legal workers from errors in the system; (2) protecting the states from excessive federal intrusion; (3) protecting the rights of all legal workers; (4) protecting the privacy of all Americans; and (5) improving our ability to prevent unauthorized employment while minimizing the burden on workers and employers. |
Grassley explained how "information sharing" with the IRS would lose its effectiveness over time, so that continuing the "information sharing" beyond the 5 year "sunset" which Grassley's amendment provides would cause an actual decrease in evidence:
|
GRASSLEY: "Our amendment would sunset these provisions after five years, subject to a future extension, as is standard practice when allowing access to private taxpayer data for the first time for a new purpose. Moreover, the long-term value of SSA and IRS data for immigration enforcement is highly suspect. Once employers realize their W-2s will be used against them, they may simply stop filing suspect W-2s. |
|
CHERTOFF: "We all agree that DHS should have access to the 'no-match' information that both the current bill and your amendment allow. Our difference arises from the fact that the Grassley-Baucus-Obama amendment arbitrarily cuts off that access after five years. As you will recall, our recent enforcement efforts have shown that fake IDs and made-up Social Security numbers are rampant in many industries. The need for 'no-match' information to combat such fraud win not disappear in five years. We should not exempt employers from enforcement of immigration laws because we fear that they may refuse to comply with tax law. I am confident that the vast majority of employers want to follow the law. Indeed, our enforcement system rests on the expectation that individuals--employers and employees alike--will obey the law. [This is true to the extent our laws are reasonable, justified, and humanly possible to follow. The deeper bureaucracy digs its red tape tentacles into our everyday lives, the nearer will come the collapse of our legal system.] For those few who may flout the law, however, the tight response is more enforcement, not less. |
Grassley tells Chertoff to quit whining: if five years passes and the Senate thinks he still needs IRS help, AND IF the Senators aren't hearing citizen complaints of DHS abuse of its use of the IRS, the Senate will extend the "information sharing".
|
GRASSLEY: "There is no reason to believe continued access to SSA no-match data [by the IRS] will be necessary once DHS has fully implemented the employment verification system. However, should continued access be needed, we would fully support an extension of the 5-year limitation, provided DHS meets its obligation to protect and properly use this confidential taxpayer data." |
In floor debate June 27, Grassley said the 5-year sunset is not a new idea but is the law. He said the law was motivated by scandals during the Nixon and Johnson presidencies.
|
GRASSLEY: "On another point Senator Kyl made saying it eliminates after 5 years the information sharing among Government departments, which is critical to making this work, a sunset is standard practice when we compromise the protection for the individual taxpayer, that the taxpayer's income tax information will be private so that, like President Johnson and President Nixon, it cannot be used to violate your privacy for political reasons. That is why that law was passed. " |
Senator Kennedy asked Grassley about the "hundreds of thousands of mistakes that are going to be made" as they set up the EEVS system, so why does Grassley's amendment take out the provision that employees can't be fired during appeal? Well, Grassley didn't directly respond to the question, which may be excused because (1) it took 3 minutes to argue over whether Grassley should be allowed time to answer, during which it would be hard to remember the question; (2) Grassley was allowed only 1 minute to respond to Kennedy's complicated question; and (3) the premise of Kennedy's question was wrong, as Grassley had explained in one of his letters. Grassley's amendment provides greater protection against losing jobs over SSA mistakes. So Grassley responded with his own concern over the "hundreds of thousands of mistakes that are going to be made": misuse of IRS audits will cause even more Americans to simply stop filing returns altogether!
|
GRASSLEY: "...the only response I can give to the Senator from Massachusetts is that we have worked very hard in the Finance Committee to make sure that private income tax information and private Social Security information is protected. It seems to me that is basic to a system of taxation that is voluntary compliance. We have made some compromises of that, some use of that under very strict guidelines in the past. We presented it to the Senator's committee on this bill the same as we have in the past. The 5-year sunset is one example. Certain penalties for misuse of the information is another one. It seems to me that is very basic if we are going to have confidence in our tax system and protect the privacy of the individual taxpayer. |
So the vote was whether to "table" the Baucus-Grassley amendment. The vote "failed", meaning the Senate refused to "table" it. That is not the same as voting for it. But for all practical purposes, the Senators understood that the Immigration Compromise Bill was now going to have to compromise with Baucus and Grassley, or die. The Senate chose to let it die.
Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid was so sure his strategy of tabling all these troubling amendments would succeed, that he didn't wake up until a little after the vote:
|
REID: "Madam President, as I indicated earlier, I am going to move to table the--oh, we can't do that. We are stuck on this amendment. Why don't we agree to the amendment now and move on to something else? VITTER: I object. |
Senator Coburn, from Oklahoma, used his 10 minutes to give a pep talk so general that it could have been about anything from a War on Worms to honoring an Eagle Scout, except for this little bit about "liberty" and the "rule of law" which it makes it sound like our liberty is endangered if we don't clamp down on the liberty of illegals, which is the opposite concern Grassley had, that we are depriving the liberty of immigrants in a way that deprives our own:
|
COBURN: It is about the worry that the American people have for this concept called liberty. They are worried about that concept right now. They are worried about whether we have the mettle to stand up to the test, to put us back on a road that will give them the confidence that what we do will be done in the best interests of them and their children. There is worry that the thing that gives us liberty, which is the rule of law, is somehow now being tinkered with in a way that undermines their confidence and security in what this American dream is all about. |
It was a stress-free time-killer while they were administering smelling salts to Reid.
Senator Kennedy spoke next, with two interesting perspectives. First, that no immigration bill can seal the borders with enforcement only, and no legal way to come for the millions trying. Remember that Grassley was "weighing" how to provide a sufficient legal pathway to replace illegal workers with legal ones.
|
KENNEDY: We can, as a nation, no longer afford to have, effectively, almost an open border in the Southwest. We also know, because in our committee we have listened to those who understand this issue, when they say we need to have secure borders, they also understand that with the strong kind of magnet attraction the American economy has, there is going to be leakage on that border. No matter how high we build walls or how many radars or air drones we have there or how many border guards we have, there is going to be leakage, unless we provide at least some opportunities for those who have some skills that in the United States we find we are unable to get filled in terms of the American workforce. There has to be at least some opportunity for those individuals to come to the United States. Those of us who support this legislation believe in legality. We believe in national security, but we believe in legality. What we have today is lawlessness. We have lawlessness on the border, approaching the border, after the border, and in too many shops, plants, and factories around our country, including in my own State, in which we find the undocumented exploited, and they continue to be exploited. That is happening today. |
And second, Kennedy said that Grassley's amendment had just destroyed any hope of enforcing the border "leakage" that the legal pathway wouldn't stop.
|
KENNEDY: As one who has, along with others, been involved in these debates about immigration reform, unless you are going to have a tamperproof card, you might as well forget it. We have learned that lesson in the 1986 act and in the 1992 act and earlier periods of time. The idea that somehow tomorrow we are not going to be willing to continue this process and end this process without the assurances that we are going to end up with a tamperproof card is going to mean that the challenges we are facing on this issue at this time are going to be multiplied many times over, many times over. That is a fact. |
Kennedy was not without hope, however. He said he was hopeful that as the bill goes through the House, and then through conference committee, Grassley's bothersome language would be removed.
|
KENNEDY: "I look forward to tomorrow, and I hope all our Members will exercise their best judgment. We will have an opportunity to move ahead and complete this legislation and then hopefully we will continue the progress we made in the Senate so we can work with those who have differing views in the House and in the Senate and ultimately get legislation that is worthy of the Senate. " |
But just when Kennedy had persuaded himself the end of the world hadn't come after all - he couuld live with this, still make the most of this, he still had hope - Democrat Senator Patrick Leahy spoke for the next amendment, and made Grassley sound like a "yes" man. Leahy offered 14 reasons to not only strip the Real ID act out of the immigration bill, but to strip it out of human memory:
|
LEAHY: "Mr. President, I am pleased to offer my support for the Baucus-Tester-Collins-Leahy amendment to strip the references to the problematic REAL ID program from the underlying immigration bill. We may agree or disagree about the merits of the actual REAL ID program, but as hearings in the Judiciary Committee and the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee have shown, REAL ID is far from being ready for prime time. While the Department of Homeland Security has not even released final regulations directing the States on REAL ID implementation, REAL ID licenses are rapidly becoming a de facto national ID card, since you will need one to enter courthouses, airports, Federal buildings, and--if this bill passes--workplaces all across the country. With roughly 260 million drivers in this country, I do not see how we could have the massive national databases required by REAL ID and this immigration bill up and running by the 2013 deadline set in this bill. Moreover, REAL ID raises multiple constitutional issues whose legal challenges could delay final implementation for years. In addition to numerous privacy and civil liberties concerns, REAL ID is a massive drivers' tax that could cost Americans taxpayers more than $23 billion. Opposition spans the political spectrum, from the right to the left, and a large number of States have expressed concerns about the mandates of the REAL ID Act by enacting bills and resolutions that oppose REAL ID. Georgia, Washington, Oklahoma, Montana, South Carolina, Maine, and New Hampshire have gone so far as to pass binding legislation that says they intend to refuse to comply with REAL ID. The National Conference of State Legislatures and the National Governors Association have expressed serious reservations about the costs imposed on the States--and the structure of the poorly drafted grant program in the underlying bill. The Center for Democracy and Technology and the ACLU have expressed serious concerns about the lack of privacy and civil liberties protections within the REAL ID program. The reaction to the unfunded mandates and lack of privacy standards in the REAL ID Act is a good example of what happens when the Federal Government imposes a unilaterally devised and ill-considered mandate rather than working to meet goals through cooperation, bipartisanship, and partnership. For any new immigration measures to be effective, they must be well designed. Forcing employers, employees, and the States to use this troublesome national ID card will slow down the hiring process, stifle commerce, and not serve as an effective strategy. In addition, the States have already told us that they will not all have their new license programs up and running by the 2013 deadline called for in this bill. On top of that, I have gone through this bill several times, and I have found money for border fences, money for surveillance technologies, money for border patrol agents, and money for detention facilities, but I cannot find any hard money that actually goes into REAL ID implementation. So doing away with this poorly drafted grant program will not take $1 away from the $4.4 billion in enforcement money contained in this bill. As a result, I do not believe that we should jeopardize the future success of the immigration reforms sought in this bill by tying REAL ID too closely to it. Instead of mandating REAL ID licenses for employment verification, I think we should support the Baucus-Tester-Collins-Leahy amendment to strip REAL ID from this bill and put together a workable employment verification system that does not needlessly burden every legal job seeker in this country with the onerous and problematic requirements of REAL ID." (CR S8599) |
Senator Arlen Specter felt betrayed. Not believing that Grassley or Leahy might have actually persuaded anybody, he said:
|
SPECTER: "Yesterday, on the Baucus amendment, it was really extraordinary. I have been here a while. Twenty-three Senators changed their votes. You can tell on the cards, there is a check one way and a cross-off and a check the other way. Twenty-three Senators changed their votes. We talk about profiles in courage, this is a profile in cynicism. Votes were changed in order to defeat the bill, not because they expressed the preferences of the Senators. There were colleagues who said how they would vote, and then they didn't vote the way they said they were going to. I am not going to call them commitments which were breached, but that term might be used. It is a little strong to say that a Senator broke his word and breached a commitment. Let me simply say that some said how they would vote and then didn't. That is an unusual occurrence in the Senate. |
Senator Sessions summarized what happened:
|
SESSIONS: "Mr. President, this has been a very important day, a day that was pretty contentious. The procedural mechanism that the Majority Leader had invoked to control the debate in the Senate had its wheels come off today. The plan by the group, the grand bargainers and the leadership, was to push through a controlled series of 27 or so amendments today. The plan was to vote on this controlled group of hand picked amendments, mostly by motions to table, today. Had they voted on all of these amendments today we would have heard claims about the full and fair amendment process that had taken place this week--even though it was all just a show--no amendment would have gotten a vote unless the Majority Leader had approved it. My amendments, Senator Cornyn's amendments, and amendments by Senators Dole, Vitter, Coburn, and DeMint would not have gotten votes. Well, the Baucus amendment was part of their plan but a surprise happened, it was not tabled. As a result, that amendment remained alive and the majority leader had the plan that had been so carefully constructed, almost to the degree of the Normandy invasion, come to a halt. So we are now no longer voting and debating tonight. But we will be getting ready for a key vote in the morning. |
Sessions voted for the Baucus amendment. Why? He urged senators to vote against the bill the next day, because the Congressional Budget Office backed up his own estimate that the bill would reduce illegal immigration by only 13%. And the 24 hour background checks, after which the government would hand out legitimate ID's, will actually help terrorists who now have greater difficulty getting phony ID's. But he has no sympathy for illegals, or appreciation for the value of a legal pathway wide enough to relieve the pressure on people to cross illegally, so surely he would favor the sternest possible tracking bureaucracy if he thought it was ready.
Sessions spoke a lot, but the only thing he said he liked about the Grassley-Baucus amendment was that it derailed the Immigration Compromise bill. He doesn't have anything against the Real ID Act. He voted to fund it on July 26, when the Senate voted 50-44 against $300 million to states towards their Real ID expenses. (Senate Amendment 2405, by Alexander.)
The vote was not just to fund the Real ID Act, but to save it. All but 13 states are in different stages of rebellion against the Real ID Act, and much of the opposition is over the cost, which states call an "unfunded federal mandate" - meaning Congress mandates that states do expensive things, without paying for them, which forces states to either raise taxes or cut programs in order to obey. $300 million was only a fraction of the states' immediate cost to comply with Real ID, so the vote against providing even that much was a vote to abandon the Real ID Act. But Sessions voted to salvage it.
Even Tenessee Republican Lamar Alexander, the amendment's sponsor, was not excited about Real ID but only said we should either fund it or scrap it. So when the Senate voted not to fund it, Baucus submitted an amendment, Senate Amendment 2406, an amendment only one sentence long:
|
Senate Amendment 2406, by Baucus: "None of the funds made available in this Act may be used for planning, testing, piloting, or developing a national identification card." Approved July 26, 2007 by unanimous consent. |
The Senate approved it by unanimous consent! (Although Alexander's $300 million had been defeated, the funds Baucus referred to were the $50 million remaining in the mother bill, H.R. 2638, or S. Amdt 2383.
So here is my question for Senator Sessions, which I emailed to his press office 8/29/7 (after talking to Emily Mathis in his office the day before):
Dear Senator,
You opposed the Immigration Compromise bill June 27 because it was projected to reduce illegal immigration only 13%.
The bill would have been more effective had you been allowed to provide more than 24 hours for background checks, but wasn't it less effective with the Electronic Employment Verification System stripped of the Real ID Card by the Baucus-Grassley-Domenici amendment for which you voted? And won't the task of deporting 12 million illegals be far more difficult if your wish is granted of removing positive incentives for them to come out, such as new pathways to legal residence, which you call "amnesty"?
What do you believe a bill might contain, that would achieve the 90% reduction in illegal immigration which you desire?
There is a lot of pressure on a Congressman from a state that has outlawed the Real ID Act, to take action against it in Congress.
|
"US Real ID card plan starved of funds" by Anne Broache, CNET News.com, 30 July 2007, 10:34 AM "The fate of a Bush-backed national identification card is up in the air after the US senate rejected providing US$300 million in funding for the plan." "By a 50-44 vote" a Republican amendment lost that would have given states $300 million to help them implement the "Real ID Act". That left $50 million in the bill. By a unanimous vote the Senate voted to "prohibit the use of any of the spending bill's funding for 'planning, testing, piloting, or developing a national identification card.'" The final passed by 89-4. "The Department of Homeland Security projects the cost of Real ID for states and taxpayers over the next 10 years at more than US$23 billion." |
What You Have To Bring to Renew your Real ID License: (If you are a citizen) Sec. 202(c) Minimum Issuance Standards-
(1) In General- To meet the requirements of this section, a State shall require, at a minimum, presentation and verification of the following information before issuing a driver's license or identification card to a person:
(A) A photo identity document, except that a non-photo identity document is acceptable if it includes both the person's full legal name and date of birth.
(B) Documentation showing the person's date of birth.
(C) Proof of the person's social security account number or verification that the person is not eligible for a social security account number.
[The preceding could be satisfied by showing an old driver's license.] (D) Documentation showing the person's name and address of principal residence.
(2) ....
(B) EVIDENCE OF LAWFUL STATUS- A State shall require, before issuing a driver's license or identification card to a person, valid documentary evidence that the person--
(i) is a citizen or national of the United States; [This just about requires a birth certificate, for natural born citizens.] |
Two questions.
Do Congressmen Tom Tancredo, Steve King, and Jeff Sessions understand the setback suffered June 27 for their cause of imposing the Mark of the Beast on America?
When the Antichrist finally picks up the keys handed him by Moral Conservative Congressmen like Tom Tancredo
and Steve King, will Moral Conservatives still tell Christians to honor the Antichrist's "rule of law", all the
way to Hell (Revelation 14:9)?
Other Fantastic Articles, Books, Movies, Music:
